Give us more A's

Harvard Professor Harvey C. Mansfield has perhaps been the most vocal critic of grade inflation. For years, he tried to keep his grades down and resisted the pressures of students who expected higher grades. But a few years ago, "Harvey C. Minus," finally gave in, somewhat. He now gives each student two grades -- one inflated for the student's school record, and one private grade Mansfield believes better reflects the student's actual performance.\nRealizing an entire school needs to work simultaneously to curb grade inflation, administrators at Princeton have recently made a proposal of putting a cap on the percentage of A's awarded by each department. I agree something needs to be done about grade inflation, but there are better ways to address the problem.\nWhat we need is not fewer A's but a complete overhaul of our current grading system. Our ABCDF system simply doesn't jive well with current connotations of the letters A and B in our society. The letter A is supposed to mean excellent in our grading system, and B is supposed to mean good. But in our everyday use, A really means adequate or above standard, and B implies deficiency, inferiority or something substandard.\nNo one likes to be labeled as "B" standard.\nWhen my column ran only biweekly for most of this semester, I jokingly lamented about being a "B-Team" columnist. At the grocery store, you can buy grade AA eggs or grade A eggs. If they were instead called grade A and grade B, respectively, would anyone buy the grade B eggs? In professional baseball, there are the major leagues. Then there's AAA level, AA level, A level and rookie league. There's no B or C level.\nOne possibility for a new grading system is to get rid of the letters and give grades from zero to 100, which many countries already do. It's an excellent system for distinguishing people, but some believe it makes too competitive an atmosphere. India is now in the process of switching from the number system to a system similar to ours because students were becoming despondent over getting 95s instead of 98s.\nAn ideal grading system would simultaneously distinguish student performance and make students feel encouraged. After careful analysis of the situation, I propose two new grading systems, each of which, I believe, would do just that.\nThe first I call the "major league" system. Instead of ABCDF, there would just be A, AA, AAA and rookie, just like in baseball. An A in this system would really be more like a "C," but students would feel much better about getting them, and professors wouldn't be so hesitant to give them.\nPart of the genius of this system is it can adapt to grade inflation. When grades get too high, we can just keep adding more A's. "Mom, I got three sextuple A's this term! My GPA's up to 8.74 on a 4.0 scale!"\nMy second proposal I call the "Kerri Strug" system. When I watch gymnastics, every score it seems is above nine: 9.347, 9.651, 9.923. With all those digits, I have always wondered why the 9 is even there. A guy can do a face flop on the Pommel Horse and still get above a nine.\nIn my proposed system, every grade would start with an A: A.95, A.72, A.55. This is actually India's old number system in brilliant disguise, but everyone feels good because everyone is getting A's.\nSomeday, after one of these systems is inevitably adopted nationwide, our grandchildren will say, "Guess what grandpa. I got all A's," and we'll be too old and senile to realize it doesn't mean anything. Then again, at many schools and departments, getting all A's doesn't mean all that much now either.